Posted 2 years ago on June 17, 2013, 4:17 p.m. EST by shoozTroll
(17632)
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"Conservatives keep claiming liberals want a “cradle-to-grave nanny state.” That rhetoric has distracted us from the real social re-engineering taking place all around us. The right, along with its “centrist” collaborators, is transforming our nation into a bloodless and soulless Randian State.

Their decades-long assault on our core social values is on the verge of consuming its first complete generation of Americans. Born at the dawn of the Reagan era, Millennials were the first to be fully subjected to this all-out attack on the idea that we take care of each other in this country, and they’ll pay for it from the cradle to the grave.

Some of us are the parents of Millennials. Who’ll fight with them, and for them?

The Psychosis

The Simpsons made a running joke out of Springfield’s “ Ayn Rand School for Tots,” where toddlers fend for themselves in playrooms whose signs say things like “Helping is Futile.” That’s very funny. What is happening to our country isn’t.

A successful social contract has bound us together since the FDR era. The Randian State is an effort to dismantle it, replacing our nation’s web of mutual trust and support with a lifelong helplessness and dependence on the whims and generosity of corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals.

The Randian State is built in the morally depraved mold of right-wing über-heroine Rand, who reviled the less fortunate – and even those who tried to help them – as “ parasites,” while at the same time idolizing sociopathic killers. "

Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today - Ya

Father, father
We don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today

Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me, so you can see
Oh, what's going on
What's going on
Ya, what's going on
Ah, what's going on

In the mean time
Right on, baby
Right on
Right on

Father, father, everybody thinks we're wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us
Simply because our hair is long
Oh, you know we've got to find a way
To bring some understanding here today
Oh

Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me
So you can see
What's going on
Ya, what's going on
Tell me what's going on
I'll tell you what's going on - Uh
Right on baby
Right on baby

The Nation at Risk propaganda is rather odd. It isn't that the information is hidden. It isn't that nobody is unaware of Bell's great contribution. It is the fact that you have an entire group of people that refuse, and I mean refuse, to actually read it or about it. Which is really funny in an insane way. Much discussion of critical thinking but not much of it actually happening. Many of them just flat out do not have the cajones to actually engage in what this entails.

The University of Virginia’s Miller Center conducted a study for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and found that “Since the mid-1980s” – roughly the start of the Millennial Generation -”the costs of higher education in America have steadily shifted from the taxpayer to the student and family.”

Median family income have risen by 147% since then, while college tuition and fees rose 439%, a tripling of education costs in real dollar terms. The impact has been greatest on lower-income families, sounding a potential death knell for social mobility.

From the New York Times: “Among the poorest families … the net cost of a year at a public university was 55 percent of median income, up from 39 percent in 1999-2000.”

The misguided ‘privatization’ of Sallie Mae, the government’s student loan enterprise, led to a series of political and financial scandals. (See “ Sallie Mae’s Jets.”) It also contributed to an explosion of student loans, many of which went to highly dubious ‘colleges’ which issued high-cost, worthless degrees. Many other students went to more legitimate institutions, but found themselves drowning in debt.

Now 7.4 million students are about to see a doubling of their interest rates unless something is done. Elizabeth Warren has proposed given them access to the Fed’s ultra-low rates for banks, while more modest proposals would keep current rates in place.

The student debt situation for Millennials would be morally unconscionable even if rates remain at current levels. Anything else is shocking to contemplate. The UPI reports today that Sen. Lamar Alexander said the President and Republicans “agree” on what should be done.

That’s not reassuring.

Massive unemployment.

There are 10 million unemployed young people in the United States. The official youth unemployment rate is 16.2 percent, the adjusted rate (including discouraged workers) is 22.9 percent – not much better than the Eurozone’s – and the anemic ‘jobs recovery’ is even weaker for Millennials.

The crisis covers everything from high-school-age summer and after-school jobs to employment after graduation.

Studies show that youth unemployment lowers income for the rest of a person’s life. That means this crisis is urgent as well as massive. Every passing month harms the future of an entire generation. What immediate, major measures are being proposed to address this emergency?

Bullshit. The good old days started declining in the late 1960s. You forgot to mention union busting which has heavily influenced our economy. The Boomers were the only generation where you could get a degree in anything and advance in any field. Didn't matter what your major was in. You also forgot the use of industrial psychologists.

It was reported at while Generation X was growing up that this group was rather small........it became an excuse to bring in undocumented workers. It was really used as tool to depress wages.

The big picture is that making some psychotic attempt to blame the younger generations is just as bad as trying to blame the Boomers. No generation has as much "power" as they are led to believe. The only thing that changes is technology. Historically, people have always sucked.

trashy-can has been sending me PM's about how awful it is that shills - supporters of corp(se)oRATists R being slapped down. Silly F'n Asshole. Oh it also said that "IT" gave GF all of those positive votes for her comments that R in the Positve comment box today - so much 4 "it's" not using socks to make votes or comments or anything - Hey?

"Conservatives keep claiming liberals want a “cradle-to-grave nanny state.” That rhetoric has distracted us from the real social re-engineering taking place all around us. The right, along with its “centrist” collaborators, is transforming our nation into a bloodless and soulless Randian State.

Funny that it is the red states that get the most in public support.

Does that mean they think that properly functioning blue states would like to have more public funds? Hhmmmm - I don't think so.